Ukrainian makes contrasts between palatalized "soft" and unpalatalized "hard" consonants. Palatalized consonants, denoted by a superscript ‹j› / ʲ /, are pronounced with the body of the tongue raised toward the hard palate, in like the ‹y› sound in yes. The "hard" vs. "soft" distinction is phonemic for only nine pairs and may otherwise be ignored.

Notes

↑The "soft" vowel letters ‹є, ї, ю, я› represent a /j/ and a vowel when initial or following other vowels.

↑The /w/ phoneme has two allophones:
* Bilabial approximant [β̞] (transcribed here [β] for simplicity) before vowels;
* Labialized velar semivowel [u̯] before a consonant at the start of word, after a vowel before aconsonant and after a vowel at the end of a word (Жовтобрюх & Кулик (1965:121–122)).